Welcome to the Squadra di Vecchi Tori Blog

We are a group of ordinary bike riders who live in or around the suburb of Malvern, Melbourne, Australia and ride under the name ‘Squadra di Vecchi Tori’ (Team of Old Bulls). Why the name? Because Molteni and Gewiss were already taken and a few of our riders are involved in the beef industry. The rest of us like being associated with signs of virility.

In March 2010, 16 of our crew each rode 527ks in 24 hours during the annual Murray to Moyne cycling event held in Victoria. We raised over $60,000 for 2 charities close to the hearts of 2 of our riders – Learning for Life and The Unicorn Foundation. Links below.

You can also find us at www.twitter.com/m2m500.

This blog will document some of our rides, contain tips, commentary, banter and a distraction for all.

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We were lucky to encounter almost perfect conditions on Sunday after a fairly miserable wet and cold Friday and Saturday. I arrived at Brunswick’s Harrison St Velodrome at midday to register and was surprised to see such a large crowd numbering around 100 people spread out across the course with about 20 riders lining up to register. Jamis bikes had a display tent set up in the centre and other tents selling cakes and providing free coffee were set up next to the registration tent.

It was nice to see many familiar faces – fellow members from Brunswick CC either along to heckle and enjoy the spectacle or to compete in either the mtb or CX race – a large contingent from the fixed.org Wednesday night ride crew and many others from around town.

I jumped on the bike and rode the course a couple of times to see what we had in store – it was an excellent circuit – a loop through the middle of the velodrome following a course that snaked its way around the perimeter with a couple of twisting flat sections and five barriers to jump, exit out of the velodrome up to the right along a singletrack gravelled path, down a steep grassy hill, right hand turn to jump over a pile of branches and then a run back up the hill to turn and descend back down and around the base of the velodrome along a bush covered path that had a 15 meter mud section then onto the path at the top with a fast descent around the to the carpark, over another barrier, through another mudpit and then back into the centre of the velodrome.

The first race for the mtbers started at 1pm and gave us an indication of what was in store – approximately 40 riders took part and a couple of riders broke fairly early including the rider who led for most of the ride and ended up coming third – Matt on his fixie running a huge gear and knobblies that he had to cut down to get to fit the frame clearances. The rest of the field spread out fairly quickly and once 4o minutes had passed the commissaires pulled the riders who had been lapped out of the race. A highlight was watching one competitor ride the race on his BMX and seeing him try to bunnyhop the barriers only to stack and bend his seatpost such that he ran the last lap carrying his bike.

Some shots from the mtb race:

Our race started at 2pm with similarly large number of competitors riding a mixture of singlespeed and geared cross bikes. Like the pyschocross event in November it was an agonyfest after about the 4th lap. Riding a singlespeed, grinding through the mud or general lack of fitness started to take its toll and by the time the announcement for 15 minutes of racing to go came over the loudspeaker it felt like I’d just about run the tank dry.

The highlight was the spectators on the hill who were the most vocal of any part of the course banging cowbells, screaming encouragement (or abuse) and handing up beers as we crested.

I managed to finish in the middle of the pack and was happy to miss out on being lapped. Everything pretty much hurt – lungs, a sore ankle from a sprain sustained while jumping over the wood pile at the bottom of the hill and my lower back muscles from pushing a big gear through mud that felt like quicksand – but it was a good hurt and I was very happy to have taken part in such a unique event.

Some photos from the cx race:

And the gallery with a number of other shots from the day:

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Nice work Stu. For future reference, please note that the Kiwi skinsuit should only be worn if a) you are at a velodrome (preferably in NZ); and ii)your name starts with Sarah and finishes with Ullmer.